BBC NEWS | Technology | UK prefers broadband to dial-up

BBC NEWS | Technology | UK prefers broadband to dial-up

50.7% of UK net users are on broadband. This is good news and shows that broadband is becoming commodity and pricing will continue to fall. New services will be launched based on ADSL2+ which will allow triple-play offerings.

However Ofcom are playing a balancing act, encourage LLU take-up by forcing BT to maintain wholesale DSL pricing until there are 1.5m unbundled lines, while BT (Wholesale) are the largest provider of broadband with 5.5m+ users.

So though Ofcom is allowing LLU to grow, BT are being restrained on what they can do with current customers i.e. the vast majority.

There is a second factor to this. It will take until the middle to end of 2006 before there are 1.5m unbundled lines, which gives BT a chance to roll-out 21CN, then massively change their wholesale pricing - which has the potential to put all the LLU operators out of business (or make them severely struggle) overnight.